Dark Moon Fuqery

Well I don’t know about you but this Dark Moon in Capricorn is quite something.

(As I write, the New Moon – which always ends the Dark Moon – is just under 12 hours away: See the Moon Calendar for the time it occurs in your realm but FYI, it’s exact on Thursday 11th at 11:57 AM Universal Time.)

The reason it’s so ultra-rad yet vexatious? Capricorn Moons can induce Status Angst and Phantom Deficit Syndrome but the current funk is mostly because Mercury is yet to emerge from the shadow of its recent retro-bats phase.

Until January 21, when it returns to the degree of Capricorn it was at when it turned Retro, Mercury is making several alignments for the third time in a row. And yes, the New Moon is conjunct the degree Mercury turned Retrograde on – we’re solving a million mysteries in real time but we don’t know what time it is. Or we know who we are but can’t find any clean, dry non-naff underpants.

The third Mercury-Neptune square (Jan 8 to 11) is the zaniest. Brilliant for surreal insights, paranormal anything, strange conversations and the erudite research of shadows, it’s a time warp with sensurround.

If your shamanic skills are more honed than usual or you’ve secretly become incredibly wise but are outwardly clumsy, vague and not altogether there, voila the Merc-Neptune weirding.

I read this – Catherine de’ Medici took her perfume specialist, Renato Bianco, with her to Paris when she married Henri II in 1533 (it was said that a secret passageway connected her apartments to his laboratory) – and thought for about 30 seconds that it was a brilliant concept and that town planning needs to become more visionary.

She was a triple Taurus – Sun, Venus + Uranus – but I love the concept that scents were worn not so much for seduction but to send a specific signal that would take an intuitive ‘nose’ to decode: Suddenly reeking of Oud? “Tunisian courtiers or merchants, please approach.” A new top note of Florentine Iris – “yes, the back-channels to certain childhood connections are open again – wouldn’t you like to know who?”

But my Mercury-Neptune went beyond hypothetical perfume intrigue and the incredible discovery of Lucrecia the Dreamer, a kind of Joan of Arc who got away:  Someone in my street said they had a ghost in their living room…

…What I Wanted To Say: I’m not surprised, on my last local history research bender I learned through the classified ads that 120 years ago, your house was Seance Central: three times a week and presumably in the front room.

Pluto and Neptune were conjunct in Gemini in the early 1890s so everyone wanted to talk to everyone, why should an alternative dimension be a barrier? This is when electricity inventor Thomas Edison started working on the Spirit Telephone.

But still, you could have all sorts of seance guests and invitees who didn’t get a chance to connect still hanging around, not to mention the gatecrashers.

I once lived in a house with a similar address to the ‘speciality’ brothel around the corner – we were the lane, they were the street. Misdirected clients would turn up practically every Mercury Retrograde and I was always impressed at their politeness as I answered the door scowling, not the sleek dominatrix of their dreams but a scold clad in the standard at-home creative’s   trackies and it-passed-the-smell-test t-shirt.

So these gentlemen were alive, not ghosts but perhaps you could make artwork that suggests the channel is shut-down now? Ask them all to fuq off but with good humor? Do whatever Victorian era seance entertainers did to say time’s up? Like last drinks? Do one last seance to contact the woman who started the whole enterprise and get her to deal with it?

What I said: Oh wow. She said she doesn’t believe in anything wuwu and I refrained from pointing out that the term is denigrating the Wu – aka the female shamans of Ancient China.

Pre-pandemic, I probably would have launched the rave and what’s more, felt that I was somehow destined to help her and the house. These days everyone has feelers out before a share, probing for indicators of a simpatico temperament or knowledge base.

Other than the nearly-over Mercury-Neptune square, this Dark Moon is in sync with Lilith and Uranus which helps to balance the heavy saturnine ambience.

I don’t have Status Anxiety but I’m wearing a posture corrector to discourage slouching over the computer and have just discovered that the sound I thought to be a screechy-alien-effect car alarm is a rare tree frog!

As I was pouring Evian water into the base of my handmade frog habitat, because frogs cannot tolerate tap water, I did briefly wonder if I was a complete tosser.

Still, the Mercury-Neptune square is nearly over, the New Moon is fantastic and the third friendly trine to jolly Jupiter – also now direct – is from Jan 19 to 20.

It’s expansive in it’s own right but ultra-pertinent if you see it in context of events or conversations between Dec 7-10 and Dec 17-20.

So how is your Dark Moon/Mercury square Neptune/shadowzone going?